VII
THE morning after Cheever’s arrival at the tavern he was awakened at sunrise by the bells, jangling exultantly, as if the men at the ropes were imparting their own wild feelings to the metal.
He looked out into the street and at another window saw the landlord’s imperturbable face, surmounted by a red cotton night-cap, and below in Glover Street several excited men were standing in a group around a man on horseback by the tavern door.
Wilder grew the bells, so that it seemed to Cheever that the whole town was afire, but he looked in vain for the conflagration. He could only see the sun was rising to brighten the world during another fair June day.
“What is the matter, Noyes?” asked Cheever.
“Congress has declared war against the Britishers,” answered the landlord. “The news was just brought in from Boston by the courier, the man on the black horse. It’s about time, I should think. There’ll be some lively days for the boys in privateering. There’s Captain Vickery of the Lion out there now; he’ll know what to do with his schooner, I guess.”
With this the red night-cap disappeared within the room, and Cheever began to put on his clothes as quickly as he could.
“War!” that was his chance; a privateersman with the rich commerce of England to prey upon had a rich preserve to poach, and could lead the reckless life of a pirate without the yard-arm or gibbet in the vista of the future.
His three thousand dollars would come in handy now; he could buy an interest in a privateer and be one of its officers, and with a smart boat and a Yankee crew a few lucky strokes would make his fortune. He soon joined the group of men in the street; a short, thick-set man, with a long blond beard, frank light blue eyes, wearing a blue coat and buff small-clothes, he took to be Captain Vickery; the other men were common fishermen—great, strapping fellows, who showed from their lounging, uncomfortable attitudes on land that their natural element was the sea.
The stirring news made it seem quite natural for a stranger to join in their conversation, and it was evident that the war-bells had roused the same thoughts in their breasts that they had in Cheever’s.
“It’s high time the President declared war!” Captain Vickery was saying, as Cheever joined the men. “High time; we have stood their British insolence long enough. It’s five years since the Leopard fired into the Chesapeake, and we have been submitting to their outrages ever since.”
“We can make up some of our losses during the Embargo,” spoke up one of the men.
“Yes; we can, and we will, Hiram Wooldredge,” returned Vickery, slapping Hiram upon the shoulder as he spoke. “This old town will be as full of life as a bee-hive before the sun’s an hour higher. We must get to work on the old Lion, and sharpen up her claws. It will be hard luck if we don’t sail into harbor with a prize before many days.”
“You are Captain Vickery, of the Lion?” asked Cheever.
“I am; and what’s your name, sir?”
“Thomas Marks, at your service. This is great news, Captain Vickery, and hits me just right. I have seen a good deal of service at sea, and should like to ship with you on the Lion.”
“But I know nothing about you,” remarked Vickery, sharply, for he did not like the man’s face.
“Well, Noyes in the tavern there knows me,” replied Cheever, trusting in his ability to make the landlord say a good word for him. “You may be in need of funds for your armament; and dollars do not need any letter of introduction; I am in funds, and can help out in that way, if, you give me an interest in the vessel.”
“Now you are talking, Mr. Marks,” replied Vickery, looking sharply at the stranger. “If you will walk along with me to my house, we will discuss the matter.”
“I think we would better go first, and have a look at the Lion,” said Cheever.
“Come to my house after breakfast; we will look the vessel over. Where do you live, Mr. Marks?”
“I have been at sea for the last sixteen years. I was brought up down East. I cannot say that I live anywhere; I have never been married.”
“That is, you have a wife in every port, eh?” asked Captain Vickery with a chuckle, as he walked away. The other men followed him, and Cheever went into the tavern, where he found Noyes seated in the bar-room, lethargic, even now that the dogs of war were let loose.
Cheever drew a chair up to the friend of his youth, intent upon influencing him to keep his mouth closed about that turbulent period of his life. Noyes gazed mournfully at the stove; for the reaction after the excitement was setting in.
“What kind of a man is Captain Vickery?” asked Cheever.
“Well, some folks say he is a pretty good kind of a man, and others say he isn’t. He’s a human sort of a fellow, I guess, and people like him according as how he treats them. If he treats them fust-rate, they like him fust-rate. I haven’t a word to say against him myself.”
“He’s a man of some property, I suppose?”
“Well, I guess he’s comfortably well off, considerin’ the hard times. He owns his house and the Lion, and he’s a smart, drivin’ sort of a man. Is he talkin’ of fittin’ up his vessel as a privateer?”
“Yes; he said something about it. He seemed to want to have me ship with him. Is he as likely a man to ship with as the other captains of the town?”
Noyes was silent for a few minutes. The one thought which had weighed on his mind since he had found his long-lost acquaintance, was the expected recovery of the price of a horse, long since given up by him as a bad debt. He preferred to roll this delightful anticipation over in his brain, rather than to talk upon any other subject.
“I don’t see that I have much to say against Captain Vickery as a master of a vessel. He’s been sailing a ship now for twenty year, and he ain’t drowned. It seems to me that is a pretty good recommendation. You expect to hear from Oldbury pretty soon about that money of yourn, don’t you, Cheever?”
“You are anxious to see the color of your money, Jim; I should think that as you had waited for it sixteen years, you might hold on a day or two longer without frettin’. You shall have it all, and fifty dollars more for interest if you keep your mouth shut about me. I only want a chance, that’s all; I have been steering straight now for some time, and I see plain sailing ahead, and I don’t want you to block up the passage for me, that’s all. I’ll keep the fifty dollars in reserve, and I shall not pay you a cent of it until I find that you know how to keep your mouth shut. Do you agree?”
Noyes wagged his head slowly in assent, and his eye lighted up for a moment, in anticipation of the extra fifty dollars, which he was to receive for his silence. As it was a great effort for him to speak at all, it seemed to him that his silence was cheaply purchased for fifty dollars.
“I will keep silent,” he answered.
“It will be money in your pocket if you do. Now, after breakfast, you must come with me to the Captain’s and I will try to see what I can do with him.”
Cheever calculated that he would receive the money from Newburyport within a few days, in time enough to buy a share in the Lion, and a leather belt which he carried around his waist contained enough gold and silver coin to make a show with until the three thousand dollars came to him. Meanwhile, he judged it to be prudent to get still further into Noyes’ good graces by offering him some money.
“I can give you something on account, Jim; to settle up that old horse trade. Here’s twenty-five dollars.” He handed the landlord the money in “pillar” dollars, and they were soon pouched in the pockets of Jim’s capacious trousers.
“There’s nothing like hard money,” remarked Jim, as he clinked the coins in his pockets. “A man feels as if he were fortified against the world, when he rubs it in his pocket.”
When Cheever reached the wharf with Captain Vickery an hour later, he found that the news of war had awakened the town as the kiss of the Prince awakened the sleeping Beauty and her court; the rusty sides of the vessels were being painted; the spars and wood-works were being scraped; the long disused vessels were being got ready for service under letters of marque and reprisal.
“Which one is the Lion?” asked Cheever, as they reached the wharf.
“She is lying out in the harbor,” said Vickery. “I haven’t begun work on her yet, to speak of. There will not be a great deal to do to her. She has been kept up well; her rigging is sound, and she has a new set of sails. The great work will be for the armament, and when I get a crew shipped, I shall sail for Boston and get it aboard. We shall need a Long Tom, some carronades, and ammunition, as well as muskets, sabres, and boarding-pikes. It will be no holiday cruise.”
“No; the men who expect to get ahead of John Bull on the sea must get up early in the morning.”
“I should like to row out with you and inspect the schooner!”
“I guess that we can take this dory.”
Cheever was pleased with the Lion. She was about two hundred tons in burden, strongly built of oak, and in good condition, and her lines were so good that he thought that she must be a fast sailer.
“When was she built, Captain Vickery?” he asked, as they went on deck from the cabin.
“She’s only four years old, Mr. Marks, and she’s as good a schooner as ever sailed from Marblehead, and we flatter ourselves that we know what a ship is in this old town. What was your last voyage, Mr. Marks?”
“I sailed from Havana to Boston. I am familiar with all the West India Islands and with the Caribbean Sea. I am sure that I shall be a useful man on a privateer, and I wish some stirring occupation. You know how it is, when a man has a pinch of salt in his blood, he cannot grow fat in a chair and be happy over it, like our friend Noyes at the tavern.”
“The lazy fellow,” said Vickery. “He’d rather ride in a hearse than walk, and he is scared to death when he trusts his unwieldy carcass upon the water. I suppose that he can vouch for you, Mr. Marks?”
“I rather think that he’ll be willing to tell you that I am all right. But after all, ready cash will be my best voucher. I will put in one thousand dollars toward fitting up the vessel and buying the armament, if you will make me your first mate and give me one-half the share which you have in the schooner’s earnings.”
“Have you the money on hand?” asked Vickery.
“No; I shall not get it for three or four days, but I am sure to then. I am expecting that a legacy from my father will be paid to me. You know I have been away from home many years, and when I came home the old gentleman was dead, and I was not with him to close his eyes. He was a good old man, Captain, and I brought him little but sorrow. He had thought me dead for years, but the family are to send me my share of the money. How many shall we carry in the crew, Captain?”
Vickery was gazing intently on the dark-haired stranger, wondering what manner of man he might be. He felt a natural distrust of this fellow, dropped from nobody knows where into the middle of the quiet fishing village, and he was loath to enter into a venture with a man who was only faintly recommended by Jim Noyes, the tavern-keeper; but, on the other hand, men with ready cash to invest in privateering enterprises were likely to be rare birds, and it was all-important that the Lion should be ammunitioned and furnished with her armament in time to capture the British merchantmen before the war had made them shy and scarce.
“Well, Mr. Marks,” he finally said, “I want some man with ready cash to come with me, but I don’t wish to buy a pig in a poke or to waste my time with a man who hasn’t the money he pretends to have. Still, it will be some days before this vessel will be ready to sail for Boston with her armament, and I shall not make any arrangement with another fellow-adventurer until I get to Boston.”
“My money will be in Boston in a few days,” interrupted Cheever. “I don’t expect you to close with me until I have the cash on hand. I’ll stay here and help get the schooner in shape, and perhaps I can show you a thing or two about fitting her for a war cruise, if you have only been on fishing-craft. I’ve sailed on many a queerish sort of vessel in my day, Captain, and while I am no saint, I am not the worst sinner in the world; and, whatever happens, if I don’t get the money, I am content to ship as one of your crew, and if we do not capture a rich prize before many weeks are past, my name’s not Tom Marks.”
“Quite likely that it is not,” remarked Vickery, with a grim smile. “You are a queer customer, Marks; and, to be quite frank, I do not altogether like your looks. You speak like a man who was brought up among decent people; you seem to have had an experience which may have made you a good privateersman, but I don’t know that you will turn out a desirable ship-mate; still, if you can do me a good turn, I am willing to take some risk and take a good deal for granted about you, into the bargain.”